Welcome to Hashima Island

On 27th June 2013, Google released brand new street views of a forgotten world off the coast
of Japan, in Nagasaki Prefecture. Take a haunted trip through history and discover
the secrets & myths hidden amongst Hashima Island’s mysterious, desolate landscape.

Welcome to Hashima Island

On June 27th 2013, Google released brand new street view photographs of a forgotten world – Hashima Island, otherwise known as ‘Gunkanjima’, off the South-West coast of Japan in Nagasaki Prefecture. With the aid of Google Chrome, this website allows you to take a digital dip into history to discover the secrets & legends hidden amongst Hashima's mysterious, desolate landscape.

The aim of this site is to give you an advanced introduction into where you are able to explore within the island, adding context and back-story to Google's amazing street-view photography. I hope you enjoy this website as much as I have done creating it...

Hashima Island: The Story

Hashima island is one of the 505 uninhabited islands in Nagasaki Prefecture off of the South West coast of Japan, standing at 61,000 square metres in size. But the island was not always uninhabited, as it was once home to a major coal mining operation managed by Mitsubishi, at its peak, housing 5,259 people which resulted in a staggering 83,500 people per square kilometre, making it one of the most densely populated places in world history. The island is also known as 'Battleship Island', named after its external appearance and unique silhouette.

Mitsubishi took control of the island in 1890 after its first inhabitation 3 years earlier, and began its relentless coal mining operation which lasted well beyond two world wars, and almost a century of memories before suddenly fading into history in 1974. Coal mining was slowing down rapidly in the 1960s due to the surge of popular petroleum and thus the island's destiny was decided in ‘74 when Mitsubishi announced the closure of operation.

The island was emptied so quickly that many items and possessions still remain for you to find as you explore the landscape and interiors – maybe you may come across the spirits of cats which couldn't be found before their owners took the rest of their lives back to the mainland in ‘74. All else that remains is lost history, to be lived all over again.

Credits and Author

This site has been designed and developed as a personal interest project by an English designer called Bryan James (@WengersToyBus), partly as an experiment of Google Chrome's capabilities. It is not endorsed by or sponsored by Google, merely a showcasing of both their fantastic map and street view applications as well as Google Chrome's various in-browser technologies.

I have researched heavily on the island and thus would like to name a number of resources, available in their raw forms here and all of which are well worth the jump if this site has tingled your fascinations:

Hashima IslandThe Forgotten World

Nikkyu Flats

You stand now on the fourth floor of the Nikkyu company flats for miners, built after the first World War from reinforced concrete, standing at 9 stories high and holding 241 rooms. The complex was constructed on a sloping rock at the center of Hashima and became for a time, the tallest building in Japan. Apartment complexes like these continued being created to the point where the island had more than 30 concrete buildings.

This was where many of the miners lived on the island, and is thus where many personal possessions have been left behind such as this abandoned old relic... What will you find?

As a result of these efforts, Hashima's annual coal production reached a peak of 410,000 tons in 1941. But it was an achievement that exacted a heavy toll in human suffering - Korean and Chinese replaced miners during the Second World War and were subject to poor conditions and starvation.

‘Stairway to Hell’

Behold in front of you, the infamous ‘Stairway to Hell’. The staircase, found between buildings 57 (a shop) and 16, linked to a range of areas amongst the labryinth of apartment blocks to connect neighbours and friends, communal baths and recreation areas - staircases are a common theme on the island, serving essentially as a highway system.

However at the very top of the summit, after a walk described as making one feel 'hellish pain', you find Senpukuji Temple.

In front of the temple lays a shrine, which was of great spiritual importance to the miners of the island who would risk their lives every day working in the intense atmospheres of the pit.

Each year on the 3rd of April, the entire island held celebrations to represent the shrine's ‘Yamagami Festival’. An old worshipper's hall once stood where the altar was, but collapsed and all that remains is the sacred shrine.

Block 65

In front of you lies block 65, a 9 storey high construction featuring 317 apartments.

Stand in front of block 65 and look right to see ‘Salt rain crossing’ – this is where people had to wait for waves caused by typhoons to crash in before crossing to markets and shops, as water consumed parts of the area.
Take the crossing

Built in 1945 while the Second World War was still going on, it was the only building in the whole of Japan to actually be built in this period, earning it the nickname ‘In Our Country's Service’.

After the initial construction, three further developments took place – 1947, where two extra floors were added, ‘49 when the east sector was built and finally in ‘53 which included a Kindergarten on the roof.

Primary School

You currently stand in the playground of Hashima school which you see in front of you – featuring 7 floors, this was the home of education and children on Gunkanjima island and was the final building to ever be made there.

The ground to the fourth floor held primary school while fifth to seventh had middle/junior-high school, the 7th also containing both a gymnasium and a theatre. Towards the end of the island's populated years, in 1970 a lunch hall was installed along with the island's only lift was installed – but was only ever used for transporting goods and school meals.

On March 31st 1974 the school closed for the final time, where the children of the school grouped themselves together to form ‘Sayonara Hashima’ in the playground.

‘Glover House’

To your right, you see building 30 – a 7 storey concrete construction and Japan's oldest of its sort, providing housing for miners and more specifically, subcontractors. It has a basement containing a shop, as well as a roof garden.

This was nicknamed ‘Glover House’ by its inhabitants, coming from the rumour that the designer of the construction was a Scottish merchant named Thomas B. Glover (1838-1911) who had strong links to Mitsubishi.

Take a walk to your left to delve inside Building 31, used for communal baths as well as featuring a post office, hairdresser and more housing.

Coal Storage Area

In front of you as well as a weathered and torn old bicycle, stand the towering support braces which once were an essential reason for the island being inhabited.

Coal which was chosen to be used would be carried along to a storage centre on the conveyor belt which these braces held up, before the coal ships would collect it.
The coal would be collected from long, deep tunnels underneath the sea bed around Gunkanjima.

To delve a bit further into the history of Hashima's mining past, coal production had recently expanded on a nearby island named Takashima and in April 1869, a 150-foot deep coal bed was found which brought vast riches to the operation – this influenced a rush for more mining in the area, including the then-dormant Gunkanjima. This was the beginning of Hashima's historic fate.